Uber CEO: Expect driverless cars, record funding round in the future

Uber Technologies Inc. envisions the future of its ride-sharing service as one without human drivers, CEO Travis Kalanick said.

Uber is one of two ridesharing programs looking to operate in Albuquerque.

Uber's announcement comes the same week that Google rolled out prototype self-driving cars, the Wall Street Journal reports. In a promotional video, the vehicles looks like “a gondola on wheels,” according to the Journal. It has no gas pedal, steering wheel or brake pedal for the driver to adjust. The car’s software does the work.

Speaking at Re/code’s Code Conference, Kalanick said creating a fleet of technology-propelled vehicles will eventually make car ownership a rarity, according to the article. The day when Uber drivers will be replaced is still a ways off but is inevitable, he added.

"The reason Uber could be expensive is because you're not just paying for the car — you're paying for the other dude in the car," Kalanick said at the conference. "When there's no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle. So the magic there is, you basically bring the cost below the cost of ownership for everybody, and then car ownership goes away."

The San Francisco-based company — with backers that include Benchmark and Google Ventures — is also rumored to be raising new capital that could boost it to a “record-breaking” valuation, some estimating as high as $17 billion. Kalanick confirmed a “record breaking” valuation to Kara Swisher at the CODE Conference this week. That financing could total more than $500 million, would be on top of the more than $300 million that the company has raised since being founded in 2010.